1. Tell about your thoughts about documentary film and film culture in Bangladesh. What kind of potentiality can you assume for the documentary film in Bangladesh?
-The connection of the Liberation War Museum with Dhaka DocLab started in a very interesting way. One may find it very intriguing what Museum has to do with filmmaking initiatives, especially a Museum like Liberation War Museum, it's about memory, preserving memory, collecting documents and artefacts, but also along with collection and preservation is a very important part of our activity. As now we are celebrating the 27th anniversary of our establishment and disseminating means that spreading the message to the younger generation and you can do It in many different way and film is always a very strong vehicle for taking the message, especially the documentary films. So Liberation War Museum right from the beginning has aspired to promote the documentary films on our history the first film we have made was an educational film, The History of Emergence of Bangladesh, a 22 minutes documentary made from different footage of that period and directed and compiled by Tanvir Mokammel and we still use it to show to the audience and especially to show to the students when they come in a group to visit the Museum and we can feel the impact a film can make on the mind of the younger people and also as part of our activity when we are increasing our activity in many different ways because of the support we got from the community, from the people, from different sections of life.
2. It has been quite a long time since the Liberation War Museum got involved in documentary film production, pitching, funding, organizing festivals and workshops, and other events. What are the objectives behind this initiative, and how was it started? Also, can you share why this is only for documentary production, not for any fiction?
-In 2006 we initiated a documentary film festival we call it International Docfest for films on liberation and human rights it was a long name, now we have shortened it and along with that festival Manzare Hassin Murad was the first director of the festival and he also did a workshop for the young filmmaker to encourage them in making documentary on the history of our Liberation War and we could see that program has created maybe a small impact but we found that it can have a very powerful tools for presenting history and at Segunbagicha it started in a very small way, but I still remember that Rabiul Hossain my co-trustee, and versatile man he told me that well this festival is a very small festival but I can tell you Mofidul that this is going to be a very big event and that really happened over the years and here also I will say that how the partnership of Liberation or Museum with DDL has started and how it worked Hakadoclab did their first teaching session and the festival at Shilpokala Academy and Shilpocal Academy has many facilities but also it is difficult to get the Academy for a certain period of time because they have their own various programs and in the following year.
3. How does Liberation War Museum start working with Dhaka Doclab? How this collaboration helps documentary filmmakers, especially young filmmakers?
-I think in 2018 those who were starting the Dhaka DocLab, Nasiruddin Yousuff Bacchu, Tareq Ahmed and others, are also very close with the Museum. And together we are discussing the DDL. Then I found that since 2017 we have moved into this new premise and this Museum could be constructed with the support from the government and the people. And we also made it a point that this Museum when we are going to have the permanent Museum at last and we got the opportunity.
It should be a Museum of international standards with all kinds of facilities. So we have the premise, we have the lobby, we have the open air theatre. We have an auditorium for 300 people. We have the seminar hall and we have other places also where the screening can be made or a discussion forum can be arranged.
So then we discussed with DDL why don't move the Dhaka DocLab to the Liberation War Museum? And that's how it started. And as I said that it also has benefited both of us. Dhaka DocLab because it's a very special premise. And the filmmakers when they gathered here and especially those who are coming from abroad, the critics, those who are pretty much involved in different kinds of festivals, especially documentary filmmaking, marketing and Samia Zaman has a very good network.
So many important people came to Bangladesh for DDL and this time they actually did the work at the Liberation War Museum. And we found that this is also a great opportunity for us to tell the history of our liberation struggle to concern the people who has the artistic capability and also the creative mind.
And they were all very impressed by the Gallery in the Museum, by the different activities. And we actually formed a very interesting bondage with those people. And I will remember very strongly Nilotpal Majumdar who was heading the Kolkata DocEDGE at that time. And he was really amazed by the Museum and the work that we are doing. And many of them expressed their spirit of cooperation with the Museum. So that's how the DDL came to the Liberation Museum or I will say that we are the host. But it's a partnership and it's an annual event now for both Dhaka DocLab and Liberation War Museum.
4. How has DDL created impact on the Documentary film Industry in Bangladesh?
-Well, since that time, actually, every year we are following Dhaka Doclab due to COVID There was a gap in this time. But every time we could feel that Dhaka Doclab is getting more and more organized and also attracting younger people to get engaged in a very professional way.
And documentary filmmaking is not an easy job, and you have to go through a very hard struggle to learn the techniques and also to learn how to tell the story. And not only that, and finally also how to promote your film in the relevant circuits.
And Dhaka DocLab brings the relevant people to Bangladesh and their interaction with the younger generation. I think the whole concept of pitching then rewarding a few of the good proposals. This is working. And this is I think that this is maybe for the first time that younger filmmakers, documentary filmmakers got the opportunity to get connected with documentary filmmaking in different parts of the world, in the major festivals or major persons who are in the circuit. So it has actually internationalized the whole concept of filmmaking. And I think filmmaking, the language is international, and anybody who is making a film in a particular place, a particular country, a particular time, it's always going to be an international artistic endure. So Dhaka DocLab, I would say that creating the actual opportunity, which is very difficult to get in a country like ours and Dhaka DocLab followed the footsteps of Kolkata DocEDGE, and now these two festivals are becoming a major initiative in South Asia.
5. Does the Museum have any policy to grant funds for documentary making? If yes, kindly tell us how many films are produced by the Museum and the impact of those films.
-I would say. As a Museum, our primary task is collecting artefacts, documents, and memorable. And as I said, that memorialization is our prime task. And memorisation brings forward the other responsibilities. And one of the major responsibilities of the nation is justice. That is the history of brutal atrocity, genocidal crimes, and the issue of justice. And we as a Museum contribute in a different way because we have the documents and archives, and in many ways, we contributed to the international crimes tribunal of Bangladesh and also in bringing scholars from other countries to Bangladesh and getting them introduced to our justice process and also as a corollary or as part of such activity.
Documentary filmmaking has a very important role to play. We all know that in 1971, great documentaries were made during the struggle, and those still inspire us from our own filmmakers and from outside. So as a Museum, we also feel that there should be more documentary films made on Bangladesh history, its relevance, and its significance. And from our own film festival initiative, we have promoted a few filmmakers, but we have our own resource constraints. And we also did some commissioned work promoting our activity, especially with the younger generation when they collect the eyewitness account of history from the senior members of their families. We have made documentaries on one or two of those stories.
So those are for the purpose of the Museum And also for documentation. And we also feel that there are a lot of events and a lot of freedom fighters who are actually passing away. And it's very important to have their stories documented. And we cannot do much about that, but we think that the nation should look into it. That is how this can be done and preserved and archived. But for the Museum, we could not make many films, but we think it is about 15 to 18 films, documentary films that we have supported or we have made by ourselves. But since the last three or four years, the Liberation War docFest. We are also in collaboration with DDL. We also have introduced the pitching session And Nilotpal Majumdar has taken charge of it. He is delivering his support without any fee or anything. So his involvement, he is also bringing others into this effort. So every year we are having this Liberation War Museum docfest And we are selecting one film and supporting another. So now we are very much, I will say that professionally engaged in it. And the festival also has become a big festival for documentary filmmakers on human rights and liberation. And this time here we got more than 1500 submissions. So the preview was a very difficult job, but young volunteers have done that because for the last two years, three years, this festival was both an online festival and this time it was online and virtual.
So this is the way the Museum is trying to promote documentary filmmakers. But I would say that most importantly, the Museum can contribute actually young filmmakers Because we have a lot of archival documents, a lot of stories, a lot of evidence and documents or other objects. So, filmmakers who are interested to look into the history and bring it up in a new way, in a minute way, we are ready to render our support to them.
I think we have done so far, of the filmmakers, like Kawser doing a film on the killing fields or others. So we are here as a Museum to render our cooperation, maybe not financially or not in a material way but as an intellectual archive. There are a lot of things that young filmmakers can get from the Museum.
6. We are aware of your many individual initiatives to regularize the documentary festival in Liberation War Museum, collecting archive footage (which could be an excellent asset for future documentary film production); if you could kindly tell us those stories.
-Well, it is not an individual initiative I am part of a collective and I got the opportunity to be in a collective which can do can save not many things but we can do some meaningful things so that's a great opportunity in life and as an individual, we grew up in the 1960s when it was a difficult time in Pakistan period but the film festival movement was very strong and I remember Muhammad Khasru and also our mentors like Waheedul Haque or Ranesh Das Gupta or others who were very much part of the film society movement; Shamsur Rahman was a very big enthusiastic of the activity of Pakistan film society Alamgir Kabir also made an impact. So the film was part of the I will say that whole cultural contour of the period and that's how we got interested in film and then I also got involved with Bangladesh Film Society and later on with Rainbow Films Society and also the Dhaka International Film Festival and also had the opportunity actually to be a jury in Kerala film festival or prevalent film festival or political film festival in Iran so I had the opportunity to meet with many important people and that gives me a great... I would say the support and strength to work with the film people and that's how I got involved with the whole film initiative I find it very inspiring to work with DDL and also with Liberation Docfest that we are doing but I especially look forward to the younger filmmakers and I found that over the years they are actually tackling many different subjects which previously I think we were maybe a more single track or had a very tunnel vision and I hope that what the DDL is doing this connectivity is very important and this will greatly contribute in the documentary filmmaking in Bangladesh in future.
7. How do the Museum and documentaries merge, creating attention for an international film audience? What is the long-run impact of that?
-Well, the role of the Museum is changing and now it is the ICOM the International Council of Museums they are meeting at their conference in Prague in August they are redefining the Museum so Museum can be offered many different activities, many different ways that Museum can be established and also it has now been said that we want to go to Museum without walls we have a structured Museum but it should be very much open and accessible to others so virtual Museum is also one thing that came up strongly during the COVID period and also how the message of the Museum can be taken to the wider audience and here I think documentary, documentation has a very important role to play and as a Museum we also have a connection with other such initiatives and I will say that USC University of Southern California show a foundation which has been established by Steven Spielberg from the earning of his film and they do great documentation. And so documentation is not only about making documentaries but documentation creates the possibility of making many kinds of documentaries and so documentation Museum is doing audio visual documentation is very much part of the Museum activity. But documentary filmmaking is a creative challenge and that also goes very close with the documentation. That's why I think that we also have to break the traditional outlook. That is what the Museum can do or should do and also the audience and the activist or younger generation also should take the Museum as a platform of opportunity.
8. Future thoughts/planning?
-Well with Dhaka DocLab I am just observing how it is growing and that's very inspiring Dhaka DocLab bring much younger filmmaker into the net into the process. But one great lacking for us is that we do not have much opportunity to show the documentary films and I think this is a big challenge that people are facing many challenges in making the film. But after making a film if it cannot be shown to the audience and I think Tareque Masud and others have taken an initiative at that time taking the projector and the film and going to the audience. Now with the new technology, the opportunities have increased and become easier. But we have to make the property initiative, just put a film on the YouTube and then people will see it will not happen like that. How to make a movement and how to also do it creatively then not only showing the film but also carrying on the discussion or other kind of activity centring the film. So a new initiative is very much needed and there are a lot of good films being made but nobody has or not many have seen those films. That's really a very tragic scenario. So I think this is one area where one should concentrate and we can also think about how we can contribute to this process. But this should be a very strong social initiative.
Well, when you receive the social initiative it means that there should be many kinds of initiatives like let a thousand flowers blow. So it cannot be one single initiative which will solve the problem in a big way. We from Liberation War Museum have now established a film centre because a lot of volunteers get involved with our film festival and we also get a lot of interesting people from Dhaka DocLab and now with the COVID scenario over we are thinking that every month we can film show here we have the facilities and also others who have made films on liberation war or on our history. They can also approach us if they want to do a screening. We are here to offer them our cooperation and services. So in many ways, we have to think about it and the Museum can be part of this initiative. We can say from our site that we are here ready to get others to use the platform in an effective and meaningful way.
2. It has been quite a long time since the Liberation War Museum got involved in documentary film production, pitching, funding, organizing festivals and workshops, and other events. What are the objectives behind this initiative, and how was it started? Also, can you share why this is only for documentary production, not for any fiction?
-In 2006 we initiated a documentary film festival we call it International Docfest for films on liberation and human rights it was a long name, now we have shortened it and along with that festival Manzare Hassin Murad was the first director of the festival and he also did a workshop for the young filmmaker to encourage them in making documentary on the history of our Liberation War and we could see that program has created maybe a small impact but we found that it can have a very powerful tools for presenting history and at Segunbagicha it started in a very small way, but I still remember that Rabiul Hossain my co-trustee, and versatile man he told me that well this festival is a very small festival but I can tell you Mofidul that this is going to be a very big event and that really happened over the years and here also I will say that how the partnership of Liberation or Museum with DDL has started and how it worked Hakadoclab did their first teaching session and the festival at Shilpokala Academy and Shilpocal Academy has many facilities but also it is difficult to get the Academy for a certain period of time because they have their own various programs and in the following year.
3. How does Liberation War Museum start working with Dhaka Doclab? How this collaboration helps documentary filmmakers, especially young filmmakers?
-I think in 2018 those who were starting the Dhaka DocLab, Nasiruddin Yousuff Bacchu, Tareq Ahmed and others, are also very close with the Museum. And together we are discussing the DDL. Then I found that since 2017 we have moved into this new premise and this Museum could be constructed with the support from the government and the people. And we also made it a point that this Museum when we are going to have the permanent Museum at last and we got the opportunity.
It should be a Museum of international standards with all kinds of facilities. So we have the premise, we have the lobby, we have the open air theatre. We have an auditorium for 300 people. We have the seminar hall and we have other places also where the screening can be made or a discussion forum can be arranged.
So then we discussed with DDL why don't move the Dhaka DocLab to the Liberation War Museum? And that's how it started. And as I said that it also has benefited both of us. Dhaka DocLab because it's a very special premise. And the filmmakers when they gathered here and especially those who are coming from abroad, the critics, those who are pretty much involved in different kinds of festivals, especially documentary filmmaking, marketing and Samia Zaman has a very good network.
So many important people came to Bangladesh for DDL and this time they actually did the work at the Liberation War Museum. And we found that this is also a great opportunity for us to tell the history of our liberation struggle to concern the people who has the artistic capability and also the creative mind.
And they were all very impressed by the Gallery in the Museum, by the different activities. And we actually formed a very interesting bondage with those people. And I will remember very strongly Nilotpal Majumdar who was heading the Kolkata DocEDGE at that time. And he was really amazed by the Museum and the work that we are doing. And many of them expressed their spirit of cooperation with the Museum. So that's how the DDL came to the Liberation Museum or I will say that we are the host. But it's a partnership and it's an annual event now for both Dhaka DocLab and Liberation War Museum.
4. How has DDL created impact on the Documentary film Industry in Bangladesh?
-Well, since that time, actually, every year we are following Dhaka Doclab due to COVID There was a gap in this time. But every time we could feel that Dhaka Doclab is getting more and more organized and also attracting younger people to get engaged in a very professional way.
And documentary filmmaking is not an easy job, and you have to go through a very hard struggle to learn the techniques and also to learn how to tell the story. And not only that, and finally also how to promote your film in the relevant circuits.
And Dhaka DocLab brings the relevant people to Bangladesh and their interaction with the younger generation. I think the whole concept of pitching then rewarding a few of the good proposals. This is working. And this is I think that this is maybe for the first time that younger filmmakers, documentary filmmakers got the opportunity to get connected with documentary filmmaking in different parts of the world, in the major festivals or major persons who are in the circuit. So it has actually internationalized the whole concept of filmmaking. And I think filmmaking, the language is international, and anybody who is making a film in a particular place, a particular country, a particular time, it's always going to be an international artistic endure. So Dhaka DocLab, I would say that creating the actual opportunity, which is very difficult to get in a country like ours and Dhaka DocLab followed the footsteps of Kolkata DocEDGE, and now these two festivals are becoming a major initiative in South Asia.
5. Does the Museum have any policy to grant funds for documentary making? If yes, kindly tell us how many films are produced by the Museum and the impact of those films.
-I would say. As a Museum, our primary task is collecting artefacts, documents, and memorable. And as I said, that memorialization is our prime task. And memorisation brings forward the other responsibilities. And one of the major responsibilities of the nation is justice. That is the history of brutal atrocity, genocidal crimes, and the issue of justice. And we as a Museum contribute in a different way because we have the documents and archives, and in many ways, we contributed to the international crimes tribunal of Bangladesh and also in bringing scholars from other countries to Bangladesh and getting them introduced to our justice process and also as a corollary or as part of such activity.
Documentary filmmaking has a very important role to play. We all know that in 1971, great documentaries were made during the struggle, and those still inspire us from our own filmmakers and from outside. So as a Museum, we also feel that there should be more documentary films made on Bangladesh history, its relevance, and its significance. And from our own film festival initiative, we have promoted a few filmmakers, but we have our own resource constraints. And we also did some commissioned work promoting our activity, especially with the younger generation when they collect the eyewitness account of history from the senior members of their families. We have made documentaries on one or two of those stories.
So those are for the purpose of the Museum And also for documentation. And we also feel that there are a lot of events and a lot of freedom fighters who are actually passing away. And it's very important to have their stories documented. And we cannot do much about that, but we think that the nation should look into it. That is how this can be done and preserved and archived. But for the Museum, we could not make many films, but we think it is about 15 to 18 films, documentary films that we have supported or we have made by ourselves. But since the last three or four years, the Liberation War docFest. We are also in collaboration with DDL. We also have introduced the pitching session And Nilotpal Majumdar has taken charge of it. He is delivering his support without any fee or anything. So his involvement, he is also bringing others into this effort. So every year we are having this Liberation War Museum docfest And we are selecting one film and supporting another. So now we are very much, I will say that professionally engaged in it. And the festival also has become a big festival for documentary filmmakers on human rights and liberation. And this time here we got more than 1500 submissions. So the preview was a very difficult job, but young volunteers have done that because for the last two years, three years, this festival was both an online festival and this time it was online and virtual.
So this is the way the Museum is trying to promote documentary filmmakers. But I would say that most importantly, the Museum can contribute actually young filmmakers Because we have a lot of archival documents, a lot of stories, a lot of evidence and documents or other objects. So, filmmakers who are interested to look into the history and bring it up in a new way, in a minute way, we are ready to render our support to them.
I think we have done so far, of the filmmakers, like Kawser doing a film on the killing fields or others. So we are here as a Museum to render our cooperation, maybe not financially or not in a material way but as an intellectual archive. There are a lot of things that young filmmakers can get from the Museum.
6. We are aware of your many individual initiatives to regularize the documentary festival in Liberation War Museum, collecting archive footage (which could be an excellent asset for future documentary film production); if you could kindly tell us those stories.
-Well, it is not an individual initiative I am part of a collective and I got the opportunity to be in a collective which can do can save not many things but we can do some meaningful things so that's a great opportunity in life and as an individual, we grew up in the 1960s when it was a difficult time in Pakistan period but the film festival movement was very strong and I remember Muhammad Khasru and also our mentors like Waheedul Haque or Ranesh Das Gupta or others who were very much part of the film society movement; Shamsur Rahman was a very big enthusiastic of the activity of Pakistan film society Alamgir Kabir also made an impact. So the film was part of the I will say that whole cultural contour of the period and that's how we got interested in film and then I also got involved with Bangladesh Film Society and later on with Rainbow Films Society and also the Dhaka International Film Festival and also had the opportunity actually to be a jury in Kerala film festival or prevalent film festival or political film festival in Iran so I had the opportunity to meet with many important people and that gives me a great... I would say the support and strength to work with the film people and that's how I got involved with the whole film initiative I find it very inspiring to work with DDL and also with Liberation Docfest that we are doing but I especially look forward to the younger filmmakers and I found that over the years they are actually tackling many different subjects which previously I think we were maybe a more single track or had a very tunnel vision and I hope that what the DDL is doing this connectivity is very important and this will greatly contribute in the documentary filmmaking in Bangladesh in future.
7. How do the Museum and documentaries merge, creating attention for an international film audience? What is the long-run impact of that?
-Well, the role of the Museum is changing and now it is the ICOM the International Council of Museums they are meeting at their conference in Prague in August they are redefining the Museum so Museum can be offered many different activities, many different ways that Museum can be established and also it has now been said that we want to go to Museum without walls we have a structured Museum but it should be very much open and accessible to others so virtual Museum is also one thing that came up strongly during the COVID period and also how the message of the Museum can be taken to the wider audience and here I think documentary, documentation has a very important role to play and as a Museum we also have a connection with other such initiatives and I will say that USC University of Southern California show a foundation which has been established by Steven Spielberg from the earning of his film and they do great documentation. And so documentation is not only about making documentaries but documentation creates the possibility of making many kinds of documentaries and so documentation Museum is doing audio visual documentation is very much part of the Museum activity. But documentary filmmaking is a creative challenge and that also goes very close with the documentation. That's why I think that we also have to break the traditional outlook. That is what the Museum can do or should do and also the audience and the activist or younger generation also should take the Museum as a platform of opportunity.
8. Future thoughts/planning?
-Well with Dhaka DocLab I am just observing how it is growing and that's very inspiring Dhaka DocLab bring much younger filmmaker into the net into the process. But one great lacking for us is that we do not have much opportunity to show the documentary films and I think this is a big challenge that people are facing many challenges in making the film. But after making a film if it cannot be shown to the audience and I think Tareque Masud and others have taken an initiative at that time taking the projector and the film and going to the audience. Now with the new technology, the opportunities have increased and become easier. But we have to make the property initiative, just put a film on the YouTube and then people will see it will not happen like that. How to make a movement and how to also do it creatively then not only showing the film but also carrying on the discussion or other kind of activity centring the film. So a new initiative is very much needed and there are a lot of good films being made but nobody has or not many have seen those films. That's really a very tragic scenario. So I think this is one area where one should concentrate and we can also think about how we can contribute to this process. But this should be a very strong social initiative.
Well, when you receive the social initiative it means that there should be many kinds of initiatives like let a thousand flowers blow. So it cannot be one single initiative which will solve the problem in a big way. We from Liberation War Museum have now established a film centre because a lot of volunteers get involved with our film festival and we also get a lot of interesting people from Dhaka DocLab and now with the COVID scenario over we are thinking that every month we can film show here we have the facilities and also others who have made films on liberation war or on our history. They can also approach us if they want to do a screening. We are here to offer them our cooperation and services. So in many ways, we have to think about it and the Museum can be part of this initiative. We can say from our site that we are here ready to get others to use the platform in an effective and meaningful way.